


masquerade

by distractionpie



Series: Band Of Brothers Week [9]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hopeful Ending, Isolation, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-12 19:08:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11743317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distractionpie/pseuds/distractionpie
Summary: In every universe Ron plays a role that is hard to break out of.(Band of Brothers Week 2 Day 3 - Actors)





	masquerade

Ron attends wrap parties for the same reason he gets invited to them. Social obligation. 

Neither his cast mates nor the crew want him there, but if it were somehow leaked to a gossip columnist that he hadn't been invited then it would bring all the wrong sorts of attention to the film.

And while he knows they don't want him there, Ron also knows declining the invitation will just increase the reputation which has made him so unwelcome to begin with. So he attends, makes sure that he’s seen to be present, and then finds somewhere to slip away before his presence becomes a problem. Tonight he’s on a balcony, the chatter and music of the revelry drifting through the windows while he stares out into the night, surrounded by darkness. A director’s wet dream.

Ron is acutely aware that he has brought this upon himself.  Were he able to step in and out of character with the ease that others displayed perhaps things might be different, but Ron had always been method and his work became substandard if he didn't fully embrace his characters which he could not as a professional tolerate. He’d taken a few too many antagonist roles early on in his career and found himself both typecast and surrounded by people who were unable to see past his on screen personas. After a long shoot like this, even he sometimes can’t find the line, and he fears he’s more like his characters than he cares to admit.

The only other person who does not transform at the end of a take is their leading man - Dick Winters. He is the light to Ron’s dark, the noble hero who saves the world and gets the girl, bravely almost sacrificing himself along the way - the only thing missing from his perfection in this movie is an american flag and a loyal dog. That they are both so committed to their roles is perhaps the only thing that they have in common although Ron suspects that in Dick’s case it simply is that he's so very like his character - all natural leadership and an aura of goodness that makes the girls in hair and makeup smile at him and craft services set aside his favourite foods or fix him something extra after long night shoots. Even Ron hasn’t been able to resist it, his character bleed failing to render him immune to the way Dick draws every eye in the room to his light.

They’ve only had a handful of scenes together, Ron plays the ex of Dick’s love interest -the monster to his messiah- and where they do interact the scripts demand he feel the force of Dick’s scorn, or rather his character’s scorn for Ron’s, but when they’d both so clearly been cast for their apparent likeness to their characters Ron is not sure the difference matters to anyone other than him.

Yet despite the negative energy of their scenes Ron can’t help but admire Dick as a performer, he’d already been familiar with his impressive filmography but to see the man work reveals just how committed he is to his roles, the depth of his understanding and the consideration that goes into even the smallest of gestures to build depth and nuance into a character who had been nothing more than a flat, generic hero in the scripts. Watching him in action, Ron finally understood how he could play the same golden roles over and over again without ever making them seem like stock characters.

No doubt he’s at the centre of the party, castmates and crew revolving around him like adoring planets, while the only thing breaking the darkness around Ron is the dim glow of his cigarette tip.

“It’s a shame about the clouds, it was such a nice night earlier.”

Ron startles. He has excellent control over his reactions, and the shadows are still covering him so his surprise doesn’t show, but a little of it leaks into his voice as he asks, “Shouldn't you be inside?”

“Shouldn't you?” Winters says mildly, as if Ron’s presence wouldn't ruin the party by terrifying the interns.

Ron takes a long swig from his glass, more as a delaying tactic than out of any actual thirst. Even fans of his work approach Ron warily, afraid of a fearsome reaction to a simple autograph request and although he knows he had no reason to expect otherwise he still finds that he’s disappointed Dick thinks he’s so cruel as to inflict his presence on the unwilling. “Wrap parties aren’t really my thing.”

Dick nods as if he understands that. It doesn’t seem likely that he does, but then, he is out here with Ron and not celebrating. “What will you be doing next?”

Ron shrugs. No doubt his agent will have scripts waiting for him, all with the same part highlighted - cold, cruel men, always ruthless, usually killers, and never with a happy ending. “I’m sure something will come up.”

“Well a friend of mine has a project and there’s a part... as soon as I read the script I thought of you,” Dick says, leaning against the balcony beside Ron. “I know this isn't the most orthodox way of making an offer but he said he trusts my judgement and it’s yours if you want it.”

_ What sort of friends does Dick Winters have? _ Ron wonders,  _ That they’re writing things that would call for somebody like Ron.  _ He goes to take another sip from his glass and realises it's empty. That's not good. He’s never had much of a head for alcohol and if he's somehow spilled his drink without noticing he’s further gone than he’d thought. “Most directors request an audition first,” he notes.

“I rented a few of your past pieces when I heard I’d be working with you, he watched with me,” Dick admits. “Anyway, Lew believes casting is about chemistry.”

Ron had felt something in their scenes together, something electric that had him pushing at the bounds of the stock villain he’d been supposed to be inhabiting with improvised lines that were filled with all of the depth Ron’s character had been missing in the script but he’d constructed during long nights in his trailer with nothing but the character for company.  - he’d never thought that Dick might have felt it too.

“Send me the script,” he says. His agent will hate Ron going over his head, but Ron is pretty sure his agent hates working with him anyway.

“I have a few pages with me, actually,” Dick says and reaches into his jacket, pulling folded papers from an inside pocket and offering them to Ron. Ron takes them and is about to slip them in his own pocket when the clouds shift and the balcony is bathed in moonlight, bright enough to read by.

It doesn’t seem logical that Dick would just happen to be carrying the script with him, and now the Ron can see him more clearly he wonders if Dick had sought Ron out on purpose. It’s enough to make him smooth out the sheets and begin to read.

The script opens on an athlete in the prime of his career, admired by his teammates and opponents alike, worshiped by his fans - the sort of role Dick thrived in. It’s so fitting that Ron wonders if it was written specifically for him. But then the second page reveals his lover, and Ron can’t help but raise his eyebrows minutely. A gay role is no longer a career killer, but it’s a serious break from type and Ron suspects that Dick’s fanbase contains a number of conservative minded individuals who might respond to the move with disappointed blogging about another celebrity betraying family values.

The lover is a historian, gentle and distant, fond but wrapped up in his work. Ron knows better that to criticise Dick’s friend’s writing aloud, but while he’s convinced of the character the relationship reads falsely. What could possibly draw the athlete to a man like that? From the few pages he has Ron can't be sure of the wider plot but he can guess. “So the lover ruins the protagonist’s career?” It would make sense, hell, it would make award bait in the current climate, especially if it involved some kind of tragic accident, but there must be some dark twist, some betrayal - why else would Dick think of Ron for the part?

Dick looks shocked. “No! No, of course not. It's about... finding peace.” He frowns. “...Learning to be happy and growing together.”

Ron swallows. Once he would have been confident to take any part he thought might further his career, but each time he’s auditioned for a part outside of the narrow range he’s been cast in and turned down the nagging thought that perhaps he simply doesn’t have the dramatic range he once believed himself capable of has sunk in a little deeper. The pages he’s read are well written and they deserve to be well performed and Ron isn’t sure he knows enough of peace and happiness to do the part justice. “It’s... not my genre,” Ron says, acutely aware that he’s shoring up the sides of the box he’s become trapped in.

Dick levels him a soft serious look, and Ron -who has spent years being comfortably inscrutable- has the sudden sense that Dick might be able to see all of his thoughts writ across his face. “At least think about it?” he asks.

Ron ducks his head, meaning to look back at the scripts, but perhaps Dick takes it for a nod because his mouth curls up at the corners. It’s not the bright film star grin he flashes reporters, nor the winning smirk his character wears as he tears his rivals down; it’s something new, something Ron has never seen before, heart stoppingly genuine. “You won’t regret this,” Dick promises.

It could destroy him. But Ron can’t stand to destroy the smile on Dick’s face.

“Okay,” he says, words barely more than a breath. “I’ll try.”


End file.
